At JPMorgan, the hope is that the new rule will lead to a
"structural" change in the bank's work culture, the
bank's head of human resources, John Donnelly, told Business
Insider.

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The investment-banking division will work closely with human
resources to monitor weekend work and enforce the guidelines.

"Under specific situations and emergencies, we all understand
that sometimes you have to be in on weekends,"
Donnelly said. "But making it a routine and a regular,
expected thing is really just not necessary."

'Not expected'

On an internal call with bankers on Thursday, JPMorgan's
global banking head, Carlos Hernandez, said that
employees would not be expected to work on weekends unless
they're on a live deal — that is, one that's going to be
announced the following Monday.

The guidelines aren't always very rigid, and that's
where they fall into trouble.

Usually, if there's a way to keep bankers at their desks,
bosses will find it. Banking is a client-serving business,
so even if there isn't an imminent deal under way, there's
always work to do for a client, or a potential
client.

And as one former analyst at another bank told Business
Insider, there's a difference between not being
expected to work certain days or hours and not
being allowed to. He said only the latter would really be
enforceable.

Guidelines, rather than rules, are susceptible to manipulation,
and there's little the human-resources team or anyone else can do
when bosses ask for work.

For example, this analyst said he once worked 109.5 hours in a
single week. (That's 16 hours each day.) He did get a call from
human resources, but it was just to say, "I just wanted to check
in and see if you're okay."

The HR rep couldn't do anything else to remedy the situation.

JPMorgan is not the first bank to make
guidelines aimed at improving work-life balance, especially
for junior bankers.

At Bank of America, first- and second-year analysts are
expected to take at least four days off per month.
At Citi, analysts and associates are expected to be out
of the office from 10 p.m. Friday until 10 a.m. Sunday,
every weekend. And JPMorgan itself already
offers employees one optional "protected" weekend per
month.

These types of policies tend to be more carefully
enforced with interns than with full-time staff.

But a common complaint among interns is that not being
allowed to be in the office on the weekend means having to
work even longer hours during the week.

One former Goldman Sachs intern told us that if he could do
it over, he would buy a personal computer to work on
from home in the evenings and on weekends so that he could keep
up.

Loopholes

The former analyst we spoke to described the way his
bosses got around his bank's protected weekend rules.

"If we had to work on Saturday, the point person on the
project was supposed to send an email to the [human resources]
officer saying 'I need this person — here's why I need them,'" he
said.

Human resources would aggregate all the requests and send
them to the group head for approval.

Here's where it breaks down: The group head would
tell the VP "I need this work done," so the VP
would tell the analyst to do the work, and then HR would
seek approval for the analyst to work the weekend ... from the
very group head who asked for the work in the first
place.

"So of course every single Friday we get the email, you
know, 'I approve all work for me,'" the former analyst
said.

JPMorgan's new weekend policy is structured a little differently.
The firm said it's coming from the top ranks of the investment
bank — that is, from Hernandez himself, who will ultimately be in
charge of enforcement.

Top down

The firm will track banker hours weekly in a report that
Hernandez reviews, and anyone works too many hours will get a
call from him to find out why and what can be done to fix the
problem.

Andrew Burton/Getty Images

"What the investment bank is trying to do is very specifically
tell the seniors, not just the juniors, the type of activity that
can be done on the weekends," said JPMorgan's HR head
Donnelly.

"I think by really making it something top down and having the
seniors also lead by example, it'll work — because it's a
structural change in how we're approaching things."

JPMorgan also announced an expansion to its
accelerated-promotions program for excellent performers, as well
as a new mentorship program to help junior bankers get more face
time with senior bankers, and several new technological
developments to increase efficiency within the investment
bank.